That features trailer looks quite good. Only thing I would have done different would be to have hidden the chat console when showing the main UI.

I kinda expected a bit more motion in the second one, possibly faster image transitions (bear in mind I'm currently re-watching NGE so my expectations are a bit skewed to the "epilepsy-inducing" side), but since it is a joke-y one I can't fault you on it.

They are great! I agree with shadowfury that you should have turned the chat console off though, it was weird when it said you started recording. I am certainly glad the nuke and starlight scenes were removed, although I think that commander cannon scene looks quite silly. I would certainly be attracted to ZK by that trailer, so good work!

The fake anime one actually even got me impressed about how beautiful those units can look up close, those were some really awesome screenshots you used!

The features trailer is cool to show off, two small (minor) nitpicks i have: The pyro jump scene looks a bit like we're doing a traffic simulation. And the transition before the newton launch obscured a bit of what happened there, i was focused on the previous scene a tad too long and just ended up seeing a unit flying. But yeah, final is final.

That aside, really good stuff to work with if you want to convince people that are already interested :)

quote:Nice work KR! You didn't forget lucky in the 2D art credits, did you? The full names are kinda confusing.

I am; with some process of elimination you can figure out which full name is mine.

It is kind of strange to have mixed real names with pseudonyms though. I think you might be better off sticking with pseudonyms unless you know the full names of -everyone-. It really isn't that strange right now for people to be better known by their internet names anyway. I mean, if you ask anyone who first created minecraft, they will tell you it was 'Notch'.

I've already mentioned in chat that both videos are very cool, with much good to say about them.

As a practical matter, I suspect that the first one will be of limited effectiveness as a trailer. Or rather, it will have a specific role to play in promoting ZK, and that role is NOT as a primary attractor. First, it's too long for that. Second, it's too hard for anyone who doesn't already have some knowledge of Zero-K to understand what's being shown.

I think its role is as secondary material for a potential player to find AFTER they have already gotten exposed to ZK in some manner AND they have had something pique their interest to learn more. Once they are at that state, then KR's gameplay features trailer will serve to deepen their interest and excitement in this new game that they've found. But I don't think it serves well as an initial entry point.

I think the mix of real names and pseudonyms works fine for the fake anime trailer. It isn't (or at least wasn't) uncommon to see a similar pseudonym sprinkling in actual Japanese media credits, so it fits here for me.

The trailer looks the best in the clips of in-combat gameplay with a slightly interesting camera angle. The stuff at 1:45 and the 3 minute mark really shine - good shots of in-game action without showing the warts of the graphics or bogging down the action with lots of slow details.

The at-ground-level stuff shows the engine at its worst - the landscape textures look bad, the animation problems, etc... it's not showing ZK at its best there.

And as for the cool UI features? Let them speak for themselves. It's easy to see that you're drawing a line and the units fall along the line, so just show it in action quickly and without lots of preamble.

+0 / -0

Zero-K is a free real time strategy (RTS), that aims to be the
best open source multi-platform strategy game available :-)